ROSENMÜLLER, JOHANN GEORG. - Protestant pastor and prolific writer of a rather rationalist tendency, b. 18 Dec. 1736 at Ummersstadt (Thuringia), d. 14 March 1815. He studied at Nuremberg (Lorenzschule) and at Altdorf (University); from 1767 he was a pastor in various places. In 1773 he moved to the chair of theology at Erlangen, then (1783) at Giessen, then (1785) at Leipzig, where he was also pastor of the parish of St. Thomas and superintendent. A canon at Meissen in 1793, he became head of the Chapter (1802).
Works: Scholia in Novum Testamentum (5 vols., 1777; 6th ed., 1815-31); Abhandlungen über die älteste Geschichte der Erde (1782); Emendationes et supplementa (5 vols., 1789-90); Historia interpretationis Librorum Sacrorum in Ecclesia christiana (5 vols., 1795-1814). He also left apologetic, dogmatic and homiletic writings, sermons and edifying books.
His son ERNEST FRIEDRICH KARL, b. at Heszberg near Hildburghausen (Thuringia) on 10 Dec. 1768, d. at Leipzig on 17 Sept. 1835, was also an Orientalist and exegete. He studied at Erlangen, Giessen (Paedagogium) and at the University of Leipzig; in 1792 he became a free lecturer at Leipzig, then (1796) extraordinary professor, and then (1813) ordinary professor for the Oriental languages.
From his diligent and judicious pen came great collections, used and esteemed down to the present day (especially the Scholia), composed by exploiting the learned work of previous centuries and containing the notices handed down by ecclesiastical writers, ancient versions, by Greek, Latin, Arabic and rabbinic authors, by archaeologists and lexicographers.
Works: Scholia in Vetus Testamentum (16 parts, 1788-1817; some were reprinted repeatedly); Handbuch für die Literatur der biblischen Kritik und Exegese (4 vols., 1797-1800); De versione Pentateuchi Persica (1813); Das alte und das neue Morgenland (6 vols., 1818-20); Handbuch der biblischen Altertumskunde (4 vols., 1823-31), containing notices of biblical natural history and geography; Scholia in Vetus Testamentum in compendium redacta (5 vols., 1828-36), in which he excludes the typical sense of Holy Scripture. He edited the reprint (1753-96) of the famous Hierozokon of S. Bochart (v.). In the Arabic field, besides the publication of the description of Mesopotamia by the famous Arab historian Abū l-Fidā', prince of Hamāh, he wrote: Selecta quaedam Arabum adagia e Meidanensis (Maidānī) proverbiorum syntagmate (1796); Institutiones ad fundamenta linguae Arabicae (1818).
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Raimondo Köbert